Eurostat registers strongest price growth since the boom

It’s been clear for a while that Spanish property is well on the road to recovery and the positive data just keeps flooding in from all the major statistics agencies. Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics institute, has released its stats on prices for the first quarter of 2016 and they show an increase of 6.3% year-on-year which is the largest increase since the third quarter of 2007 at the height of Spain’s famous property boom.

Positive trend

After a run of six years of relentless price decreases Spanish property has now put together eight consecutive quarters of price growth, an indisputable positive trend and one which is again making property in Spain into an attractive investment asset.

The last quarters of 2015 had already showed solid growth with prices in Q3 up by 4.3% and prices in Q4 rising by 4.5% but the start of 2016 has seen prices really take off with analysts expecting a particularly good year for Spanish property after having finally shaken off the main effects of the crisis.

Prices for the quarter were also up on the previous quarter (Q4 2015) by 1.4%, this being the highest quarter-to-quarter increase since the second quarter of 2015 when prices rose on the previous quarter by 4.1%.

Outperforming European averages

Spain outperformed both the Eurozone and the European Union averages. Property prices in the Eurozone were up by 3% year-on-year while prices in the European Union as a whole increased by 4%, both well below the 6.3% growth for Spain.

Prices are still rebounding from very low levels after being decimated during the crisis but the fact that Spain is once again one of the countries leading price growth is something which backs up the hypothesis that the country’s property market is firmly embedded in a new positive cycle.